The Final Case: Peter Sharp Legal Mystery #9

Summary

Peter attends a cocktail party at which, Suzi and the other guests are shocked by a loud noise coming from their host’s study. When they all go to investigate, they find their host dead of a gunshot wound to his head. The gun is in his hand, and several witnesses in the hallway state that no person entered or exited the room.

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The Final Case - Gene Grossman

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FOREWORD

If this is the first Peter Sharp Legal Mystery that you’re reading, it might help you to know a little background information about the characters.

Peter Sharp’s wife threw him out of their home (which she actually owned), due to a conflict of their philosophies about legal representation: Peter being a defender of those poor, unfortunate people ‘wrongfully’ accused of crimes, and his wife Myra a prosecutor with the District Attorney’s office, who railroaded them to conviction.

Peter ultimately wound up living on a dilapidated old boat in Marina del Rey, and when his former classmate/employer Melvin Braunstein died in a plane crash, Peter inherited a failing law practice, an office manager (Melvin’s twelve-year old step-daughter Suzi, a Chinese computer genius) and her huge St. Bernard. Peter was appointed legal guardian, and through a series of misfortunes that miraculously worked out, wound up living with Suzi and her dog on a beautiful 50-foot Grand Banks trawler-yacht.

When Peter isn’t swilling Patrón Margaritas at one of the marina’s local watering holes, he’s usually involved in some losing legal case that little Suzi will inevitably solve, leaving Peter with the impression that he’s really as good as he thinks he is.

Along the way in each legal adventure, Peter usually winds up butting heads with his ex-wife, who Suzi adores and is constantly scheming to get back into the Sharp household. There’s also Stuart Schwartzman, Peter’s old friend and frequent client, who is the most entrepreneurial person in Southern California – and Jack Bibberman, the best private investigator Peter ever met.

All of the Peter Sharp Legal Mysteries are summarized at the end of this book, and if you’re curious about them, more details (plus photos) are at

http://www.PeterSharpBooks.com

*******

The sinking of the Titanic in 1912 affected me, because even though I hadn’t been born yet, I lost a good friend... someone I respected, admired, and wanted to be just like in some ways. is name was Jacques Futrelle, and at the age of 37, he was travelling with his wife in the Titanic’s first-class cabin number C-123.

When the boat sank, Mr. Futrelle managed to get his wife into one of the lifeboats, so she survived. He didn’t.

His name was Jacques Futrelle, and at the age of 37, he was travelling with his wife in the Titanic’s first-class cabin number C-123.

When the boat sank, Mr. Futrelle managed to get his wife into one of the lifeboats, so she survived. He didn’t.

Other than the fact that he was a human being and didn’t deserve the fate that befell him, he was also a talented author, and wrote the story that influenced my life from the day that I first read it: one of the most famous locked-room mysteries of all time, The Problem in Cell 13.

If you’re a fan of locked-room mysteries, then I strongly suggest that you read Futrelle’s Cell 13 story as well as John Dickson Carr’s The Hollow Man, which was the main inspiration for the Magician’s Legacy, Peter Sharp Legal Mystery #7.

The above-mentioned stories of Futrelle and Carr, along with E.A. Poe’s the Gold Bug and all the Sherlock Holmes, Nero Wolfe and other detectives, got me hooked on mysteries - and to my delight there is no known cure for this addiction.

All of the locked-room mysteries I’ve encountered have involved a victim who either died in a room that was allegedly inaccessible, unescapable from, or with a misinterpreted timeline. That’s why I decided to eliminate all the excuses: in this story; here, the crime took place in an unlocked room with an open door, was actually witnessed by observers... and then the murderer disappeared into thin air.

Got you hooked? Good! Start reading now, and see if you can figure out the solution to this baffling locked-room Peter Sharp Legal mystery before little Suzi does, and then go on to read Jacque Futrelle’s Problem in Cell 13 - the story that pushed the locked-room mystery genre into the forefront of mystery titles.

Gene Grossman

Magic Lamp Press - Venice, California

*****

Chapter 1

If you don’t feel like reading the books, you should at least read the reviews, and that’s what I’m doing now. In Los Angeles, if you’re not a compulsive shopper, there are very few reasons to buy the Sunday Times: One of them is the Book Review Section. Others may include the TV Guide and Sports Section. Some eggheads like the Opinion Section too, but for me it’s the Book Reviews and Crossword Puzzle.

It looks like many more women are writing books then in the past. I don’t usually take the time to read any books written by women because the way they write, it looks like they care more about what their characters are wearing than what they’re doing. Their readers must be those people who watch the Oscars and other award shows just to see what celebrities on the red carpet have on. Who cares which gay dress designer lends a starlet one of his dresses? Don’t these women know that they’re wearing clothes designed by guys who don’t love women? Include me out.

I’ve been called a lot of things during the past few decades, but ‘clothes horse’ was never one of them. Being a professional person, I own six suits. Four of them are right off the rack from Sears. They are designated specifically for jury trials, along with the heavy wing-tipped laced shoes, button-down shirts and cheap neckties. I never want to look too slick to a jury.

My other two suits are a different story: they were custom made for me by a Hong Kong tailor who took all my measurements and credit card number over the Internet and made the suits using my request from the sample swatches of material that he sent me. They fit fine, but because my arms are different lengths, this forced me to also order some custom made shirts, so that the requisite ½" of shirtsleeve extends past the end of each coat sleeve.

The shirts are all part of my standard uniform since high school: powder blue button-down. Juries seem to like the button-down look. My custom shirts have white collars with contrasting dark bodies and cost over two hundred bucks each, but what the hell… I’m worth it.

The reason I’m fixating on my wardrobe now is because the Asian Boys are here sorting the laundry, and I happen to notice that they are now folding the ironed items, which include two of my expensive custom shirts. This wouldn’t be remarkable except for the fact that I haven’t worn either of them for the past month or so.

My past life has just flashed before my eyes and I now see my ex-wife Myra working around our house in Brentwood Glen. She’s on the floor painting the baseboard trim in the hall, and she’s immaculately attired in one of my most expensive dress shirts, my favorite Cubs baseball cap, a pair of my new navy-blue Jockey shorts, and a pair of my expensive rag socks. If my figures are correct, it means that her painting uniform comes to around two hundred and seventy dollars. What ever happened to those baggy white coveralls that painters used to wear? They probably cost about five dollars each. Not enough for a princess to paint in.

From what I’ve been told, this type of occurrence is quite common in most households. Women like to lounge around in their husbands’ clothes. Kids like to wear their dads’ clothes. I wonder how a woman would feel if she came home one evening and found her husband wearing her clothes. On second thought, never mind... here in southern California, nothing is too weird to happen on a regular basis.

It looks like Suzi is no different than Myra. It must be somewhere in every female’s genome. They seem to think they’ve got some God given right to wear our good clothes whenever they want to, like we’re sharing a room in some college dorm.

There’s nothing I could have done to stop it when I was married, and there’s no sense even thinking about it now. Things just happen, and this is just one of them.

Another thing that looks like it’s inevitable on this boat is that whenever I want to relax and do some reading, Suzi’s huge Saint Bernard has already beat me to it and is in my favorite spot on the couch. There’s nothing I can do about this either, because no matter what I say or do, he’s not moving. Being a huge Saint Bernard, he probably outweighs me by a couple of pounds. I’ve even tried subterfuge: I went over to the cabinets and shook his box of dog biscuits. Nothing. He knows that Suzi isn’t on the boat now, so there’s no reason for me to want him to deliver a dog-mail to her. All that the shaking biscuits evoke is his raising of one eyelid in acknowledgment of my futile attempt.

A few minutes later, the only thing that seems to work getting him off the couch takes place. He hears Suzi returning, humming her favorite Chinese melody as she comes up the boarding steps and onto the boat. Bernie jumps off the couch and runs over to the door to greet her. The couch is now mine.

Being the brilliant lawyer that I am, a new plan has just come to me. I leave the boat and walk down the dock to Don Paige’s boat. He’s